Stress analysis of single-strap and double-strap adhesively bonded composite joints

Adhesively bonded joints are becoming useful for developing new structural designs and also as replacements for mechanical connections, such as bolted joints and welded structures, to reduce production costs and improve efficiency. Therefore, it is important to have a good understanding of the stresses acting on the adhesively bonded joints to ensure that the joints can sustain the applied loads. The single- and double-lap joints have received considerable attention. However, the single-strap and double-strap joints have received limited attention. In the present work, finite element (FE) analysis and experimental investigations are conducted to study the single-strap and double-strap adhesively bonded joints. FE models are developed to study the adhesively bonded single-strap and double-lap composite joints. Linear and nonlinear elements are used. Stress based criteria (the stress criterion is applied at a given distance of the singularity or the stress used in the criterion is averaged along a distance) are used together with available failure criteria (maximum stress, von Mises and Tsai-Hill), and the results of these methods are compared with test results to validate the methods